Leo finally jumped down onto the windowsill of his apartment. He had been zeroing in on the scent of a fantastic meal ever since he got out of his car and put his fur back on, and was just praying it was coming from his kitchen, and not the widow Robinson upstairs.

“You know I don't like cat hairs all over the bedroom!” Nala, his fiancee, shouted from the living room. Even with his feet as silent as a house-cat’s, Leo could never get the drop on her.

“I missed you too Hon. You know I don't shed” he called back, turning back to his human form nonetheless. Rubbing his shoulder, he continued “I have had the week from hell.”

“Babysitting a big city take its toll on you?”

Leo walked out into the living room. He fell back onto the couch beside Nala.“I'll say. Different villain every night. And they don't have the decency to come one at a time. Local guy must be one hell of hero.”

“Sounds like you had an exciting week. You came back just in time, dinner's almost done. Made your favorite.”

“Some of your special chicken parm?” Despite the fact that he had been taking on hardcore villains, this may have been the most excited he was all week.

“You got it babe. Hate to admit it, but I did actually miss you... a little.” Nala had a tendency of hiding her affection. She did a very good job of it, as Leo never realized how much she worried when he was out.

“Sounds like you're going soft on me.”

“You're not gonna get that lucky,” she retorted, getting up to check the oven, “And I wouldn't get used to the special treatment!” Leo sunk deeper into his seat. He couldn't have been much happier. He finally got to relax after a week in the big leagues. “So tell me, what was so great about all these guys you've been busting?”

“Well, I showed up Sunday and met the guy I was filling in for-”

“Spandex?”

“Spandex,” he called back. “I swear it's the only material heroes like. Glad the transformation comes with a pair of pants that aren't skin tight.” Leo was shuddering at the thought of spandex pulling at his fur. Not fun. “Anyway, I meet up with the guy, who's a lot smaller than I was expecting-”

“You know size isn't everything,” she cut him off again. Leo was starting to wonder if another night babysitting wouldn't be better.

“Very funny.”

“You know I'm kidding. Heh, I certainly know I'm only kidding.” And suddenly Leo decided this was definitely where he wanted to be tonight.

“Well, maybe we should skip the story-”

“After dinner maybe, keep going. I want to hear it, I really do.”

“Alright,” he chuckled, “so the local hero starts to fill me in, but it seems the only guy he's able to tell me about is the only guy I don't see.”

“Useful information.”

“Yeah, I was flying blind all week. And this week flight may have been helpful.” He rubbed his shoulder again. “But we can't all be as lucky as you.” He could hear Nala smirk at that. “The last piece of info he gave me was that everyone I would really need to worry about was already behind bars.”

“He really said that?” Nala interjected again. “Did he want you to die?”

“If he did he didn't try hard enough. Maybe he should have said 'There's zero chance of a massive alien invasion this week.'” Nala laughed in the other room. Leo kept going, “So the first night I'm just getting my feel for his usual stomping grounds, stopped a couple muggers, a break in, no big deal. Of course, across town, there's a massive prison break. I only found out when I followed a couple of downtown cops out there.”

“I'm guessing it was more than just a couple common thugs.”

“Yeah, I could tell that by the man made hole in the side of the prison wall. No signs of explosive, no vehicles, definitely made by human-well, humanish, hands. Couldn't believe I let that happen on my first night out. Of course, I've heard the local guy isn't all that perfect, but he's good if he's still alive.”

“So some big timers got out?” Nala was really enjoying the tale. She couldn't tell if Leo was going to under or oversell this one, but she could tell he was excited to tell her.

“Oh yeah. I spent most of my hours awake on Monday trying to track the guys down, but they were staying out of sight. Which was pretty embarrassing when I did see them.”

“Not exactly the stealthy bunch?”

“Not at all. It was Monday night when I found my first escapee.” Leo thought for a couple seconds. “Well, found is a bit of an exaggeration. He sort of happened to fly by laughing maniacally.”

“Sort of a dead giveaway,” Nala deadpanned.

“Yeah. I tail-” he avoided the cat pun, “-followed him. Orange mask, orange costume, pumpkin based weapons, and a weird flying board with a demon head on it.”

“Like a goblin?”

“Yeah. I'm guessing you know who I was fighting.”

“Of course.” Nala had spent Sunday night researching the city, wanting to make sure it didn't have anything Leo couldn't handle. Leo, of course, had not taken that action. “I actually keep up on the news.”

“Yeah well... Yeah.” Leo didn't have a good answer for that. He knew Nala had him here. Better not to dig a hole. “The guy was moving pretty fast, so I couldn't run him down before he tossed one of his jack-o-bombs at a building.”

“Jack-o-bombs? Really?”

“I get it, I'm bad at naming things. Anyway, he had stopped to throw some jack... um, bombs, and I took the opportunity to jump him. Grabbed him right off his board, and planted him in the concrete from 10 stories up. Kind of overestimated the guy, he didn't take that too well. He was about out of the fight there, and I was feeling pretty proud. That was until his board smacked my left shoulder from behind. Guy jumped on it, thought that was gonna get him out of reach.”

“And?”

“Well, the guy dropped one of his little pumpkin shaped bombs. He may have been 20 stories up, but I got his board with it, and that drop really put him down.”

“Sounds like you got cocky. Hope you learned your lesson.”

“Last one I took so lightly. Good thing too, next night was no picnic either. Some guy tried to jump me, kept going on about how my head would make a great trophy. Claimed he was the greatest hunter ever. Never caught his name. Didn't have the heart to tell him that if he did kill me, I'd probably just look like a normal human on his wall.”

“So , the Hunter? That's all you got of his name?” Nala couldn't believe he had fought two big villains and didn't know either name. “You bring him in?”

“Yeah, guy was fast, but after a couple hours I wore him down. He was out of gear, and desperately tried to grab me. Funny thing, you put an inch and a half long canine in a man's arm, and he lets go in a hurry. At that point he was about done, and a couple of good shots to his ribs sealed the deal.”

“Two nights down. I thought you mentioned taking on multiple guys at once?”

“I'm getting to that. Right after this guy. Wednesday night I see something that makes me do a double-take. A shapeshifter in a striped sweater, made of frickin living dirt.”

“DIRT?! DID YOU REALLY JUST SAY DIRT?!” Nala couldn't even believe what she was hearing. She though Leo was a lot smarter than this.

“Yeah, living dirt. The guy was making dirt hammers to smash store windows. Dirty crimes.” Nala could feel her head exploding. “Anyway, I let loose a fire hydrant on him, hoping I can turn him to mud and be done with that fight. Didn't work.”

“You let the roar go?” Nala never understood why Leo held back on the roar.

“Makes my throat itchy. I could spend a fortune on cough drops if I overused the roar.” Nala audibly groaned. She was starting to think Leo was doing it on purpose. “So, Dirtman is pretty pissed off-”

“Stop. Please stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

Nala was concerned he was serious. “Stop pretending you don't know these guys.”

“Look,” Leo said, “I googled the wrong city. I didn't find out until Sunday afternoon I had the wrong rogues gallary. Even had the wrong hero. Guy didn't look like a Feral Fowl.” Nala, while still disappointed, was relieved to hear Leo had done some research. That was until she realized Feral Fowl wasn't a real superhero. At which point she was done trying to fill him in. “So this Dirtman, whose name I'm guessing isn't really Dirtman, dried up and came at me. I tried landing a few shots, but I figured out pretty quickly that was a failing strategy. The guy wrecked a couple cars, and I got a nice little idea. Went to an old standby.” Oh god, Nala thought, an old standby. The last time Nala heard Leo say 'old standby' he ruined Christmas. “Stuck him full of car batteries,” Leo continued, “dowsed him with another hydrant, and stuck a power line in him.” The old standby had knocked out power for their entire block last year. Nala knew she shouldn't have let Leo go out alone on Christmas, but somebody had to distract the relatives, and Nala lost the coin toss.

“So,” she said, “are we getting to the team-up?”

“Depends, how long til dinner?”

“Ten minutes jerk. Out with it.”

Turning Big Cat.

Transformation: superior (rank 2)

“Alright. So by Thursday night the local bad guys had heard that even though their usual hero was out of town, there was someone else in town taking down the supers. After I cat'd up-”

Nala thought for a moment. “How about just saying you turned big cat?”

“Yeah, that's way better. I'll start using that. So, that night, I hear a guy trying to break midtown, and I look down to see this massive guy with a horn. Like a Wildebeest.” Nala just stared blankly as Leo continued. “He was just wrecking the place, so I hopped off my rooftop and landed what I thought would be a pretty powerful shot, but it hardly fazed the guy. He just turned, looked at me, and said 'That was a big mistake Cat-man.' Can you believe that, Cat-man.” Nala just kept staring. Unbelievable, was her only thought. “So Wildebeest charges me, and I can tell this is a pretty one-dimensional guy. I was thinking of a way to take him out, and since we were on the same block I blacked out the night before, it was gonna take a while. I dodge a charge by the big guy, and this huge mechanical arm whizzes by my head, close miss. Some squid-man was taking shots at me. I started thinking this was a setup, which was a suspicion confirmed when a third guy tried to blast me with some sound waves. Let's call him Dr. Boom.”

At this point Nala was reaching for the bottle of spirits. “You're killing me. Do you realize you're killing me?”

“Sorry, it's just what I was calling them during the fight. None of them were shouting their names out. Really out of villain character, usually they're just dying to let you know who they are. Meanwhile, I got these three jerks calling me Cat-man, which is more than a little upsetting.”

“I wonder how those jerks would have felt about your names for them.”

“These are probably the nicest names I came up with for them.”

“So, three villains all at once? Not too shabby babe.” Nala was having a hard time hiding how impressed she was.

“It started with three.” Nala's eyes widened. Leo saw it, but he would pretend he didn't. He knew how much her pride meant to her. “Another three of 'em joined in. Let's call the dude with the acid tail the Stinger, the flying dude with the beak for a nose Albatross,” Nala rolled her eyes, “and the guy with all the electricity, let's call him...” Nala was dying with anticipation. It actually looked like Leo was about to use the right name. He finally spat it out “...let's call him Shocker.”

“You're doing this on purpose!” Nala couldn't hold it in. “You have to be doing this on purpose. There's no way you did that on accident.”

“Did what?”

“Oh, nevermind,” she sighed. It was honestly hopeless. She poured herself out another drink.

“Well, now there are six of these guys. Some kind of, sadistic six or something.” Sadistic six, Nala thought she might actually die.

“Albatross was the first one I took out. Jumped up and smacked him right out of the air. Makes sense that my easiest take down of the whole week was on the bird. Let 'em know while I was taking him out that they should be calling the man kicking their butts Leo. Anyway, five baddies left. With the only one who can keep me on the street down, I took the opportunity to separate my opponents, or at least get the four smaller guys away from the Wildebeest. I was thinking I could pretty easily pick them off and then get the big guy.”

“And how wrong were you?” Nala knew Leo's tone, and she knew that the one he was speaking in meant he had screwed up.

“Very. Squid-man, stinger, shocker, and Dr. Boom,” for a moment Nala thought he had named one of the villains correctly, “follow me up to the roof. I was too busy dodging sound waves, electricity, and acid to land many shots of my own. I did finally manage to bust the tank on stinger's back, and the acid burned right through his tail. Kicked him onto the adjacent building, and had him singled out just long enough to finish him. Even better, the roof I went to had one of those weird water towers on it. Cut one of its supports out, and drenched the shocker. Almost took Dr. Boom with him, but I guess he wasn't affected.”

Roar!

Sonics: superior (rank 2)

Leo took a second to away from the story to grab a drink from the fridge. “Oh come on,” Nala called after him, “you can't stop now.”

“My throats just a little scratchy. Can you guess why?”

“Did you actually use the roar? I love the roar!”

“I did. Dr. Boom unleashed a full out blast. He was tired of screwing around, and so was I. A good roar sent his attack back at him, pushing him through the wall of the building we had just come from. A second shot sent squid-man and the wildebeest flying. The squid caught himself with one of his tentacles, but the big guy just plummeted to the street below. Not that it affected him. The squid's ears were ringing, and he was regaining his composure when I ran down one of his arms and landed a big right hook to his jaw. That was it for him.”

“Wow, five down. Means we shift focus to Wildebeest.” Nala had enough drinks in her for that name to be okay.

“The big guy had only really shown one weakness, he had a hard time making tight turns. I lured him onto a construction site, and let him think he had a good charge on me. He comes running in, and straight onto a huge pit of wet cement. Acted like a tar pit, again taking care of one of my troubles.”

The timer went off as Leo finished that sentence. “Good timing,” Nala said, “dinner's about to come out of the oven. Was the sadistic six the last of the bad guys you took on?”

“I wish,” he replied, sitting down at the table. “Friday night comes, last night I'm patrolling in the local's place, and I end up getting into it with this huge, slimy, black and white dude, who had this long, gross, snake like tongue. And since my mind was on snakes, I decided to call him Venom.” Nala almost dropped the dish at this. Venom, she thought, out of all the villains he fights, the only right name he gets is the one he pulls out of his ass. “You alright honey?”

“I'm fine. So Venom, is it?”

“Yeah, I'm sure it's not his real name, but it seemed fitting.” Nala just let it sit. Trying to convince him he was right would probably just come off as her mocking him, and Leo would just call him slime-man. “He was waiting for me in the same spot I had gotten into it with, well, everyone else this week. Huh, that part of town is really gonna look like hell. Anyway, Venom comes at me, and this guy is big, fast, strong as all hell, and shoots this weird black goo all over the place. He was the only guy I fought all week who really had me worried. My claws weren't getting the job done, just kept slicing through him and he just kept reforming, none the worse. Our fight ended up in a thrift shop, and to buy myself some time I roared at the roof, bringing it down on his head. For the first time, I saw a look of pain on his oddly proportioned face. My first thought was that he hadn't been able to brace for the roof, but I'm sure you know that's wrong.”

“Of course, Venom's a symbiote. It was the roar that got him.” Nala burst with the information.

“Thanks for ruining the suspense. I figured that out after a few failed attempts at surprising him. Once I realized that it was the roar that hurt him, I took the fight to a church. Blasted the guy into the organ, and the vibration from the pipes shook the slime right off of him.”

“And what did you do with the symbiote?”

“Well, you'll notice I didn't bring back that tupperware I brought with me. Local guy was pretty amused when I handed him a plastic container filled with symbiote and ravioli.”